Announce of the apparent lowest bid at the bid opening

In Ballast 49-5, it says that architect should NOT announce the apparent lowest bid at the public bid opening, but in the practice test, it says the apparent lowest bider will be announce at the public bid opening. I am confused.... Please help!

Take a look at bidding procedures in the AHPP for both public and private projects. Also look at 3.5 in the B101 to check your duties.

Public bidding would of course typically require reading the bids aloud in a public forum, however the public entity would be under no obligation to announce anything related to a decision at the bid opening. A quick announcement of low -- or even apparent low -- is a good thing to avoid. Bids -- even on smaller projects -- can sometimes be very complicated. It's reasonable and typical for a proper bid evaluation to take a few days or a couple weeks. The bid evaluation and documentation process is included in an architect's basic services, and the time frame for this is typically noted in the Instruction to Bidders in the project specs.

Note that contractors will be very watchful for procedural errors on public bids.